Saxophone Colossus is the sixthstudio album by Americanjazz saxophonistSonny Rollins. Perhaps Rollins's best-known album, it is often considered his breakthrough record.[4] It was recorded monophonically on June 22, 1956, with producerBob Weinstock and engineerRudy Van Gelder atthe latter's studio inHackensack, New Jersey. Rollins led a quartet on the album that included pianistTommy Flanagan, bassistDoug Watkins, and drummerMax Roach. Rollins was a member of theClifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet at the time of the recording, and the recording took place four days before his bandmates Brown andRichie Powell died in a car accident on the way to a band engagement in Chicago (Rollins was not travelling in the car carrying Brown and Powell). Roach appeared on several more of Rollins' solo albums, up to the 1958Freedom Suite album.
Saxophone Colossus was released byPrestige Records to critical success and helped establish Rollins as a prominent jazz artist.[5]
There are five tracks on the album, three of which are credited to Rollins. "St. Thomas" is a calypso-inspired piece named afterSaint Thomas in theVirgin Islands. The tune is traditional and had already been recorded byRandy Weston in 1955 under the title "Fire Down There". (In the booklet provided with the boxed set,The Complete Prestige Recordings, Rollins makes it clear that it was the record company that insisted on his taking credit.) In any case, the piece has since become a jazz standard, with this being its most well-known version.[citation needed]
The final track, "Blue 7", is a blues piece, over eleven minutes long. Its main, rather disjunct melody was spontaneously composed. The performance is among Rollins's most acclaimed, and is the subject of an article byGunther Schuller entitled "Sonny Rollins and the Challenge of Thematic Improvisation". Schuller praises Rollins on "Blue 7" for the use of motivic development exploring and developing melodic themes throughout his three solos, so that the piece is unified, rather than being composed of unrelated ideas.[citation needed]
The original 22 June 1956 session was recorded byRudy Van Gelder. A CD version, mastered bySteve Hoffman, was released in May 1995 by DCC Compact Classics; no additional performances were included. Another remastered version, this time by Van Gelder, was released on 21 March 2006. The album's title was devised by Prestige Records' in-house publicity director Robert "Bob" Altshuler.
Independent sources have differed in their reporting of the album's release date. According toThe Mojo Collection, it was released in the autumn of 1956,[5] while an August 1957 issue ofBillboard magazine listed the album among records released in the period between March 16 and July of that same year.[17] Reviewing in April 1957,Billboard said "Rollins' latest effort should really start musicians buzzing", as "the tenorman is one of the most vigorous, dynamic and inventive of modern jazzmen", and "everytrack is packed with surprises, tho Rollins develops each solo with great architectural logic".[18]Ralph J. Gleason reviewed the album later in June forDownBeat, writing:
Almost as if in answer to the charge that there is a lack of grace and beauty in the work of the New York hard-swingers comes this album in which Rollins displays humor, gentleness, a delicate feeling for beauty in line, and a puckish sense of humor. And all done with the uncompromising swinging that has characterized them all along.[9]
In a retrospective review for AllMusic,Scott Yanow calledSaxophone Colossus "arguably his finest all-around set",[7] while German musicologist Peter Niklas Wilson deemed it "another milestone of the Rollins discography, a recording repeatedly cited as Rollins'chef d'oeuvre, and one of the classic jazz albums of all time".[19]In 2000 it was voted number 405 inColin Larkin'sAll Time Top 1000 Albums.[20]The Penguin Guide to Jazz included the album in its suggested "core collection" of essential recordings, and in addition to its maximum rating of four stars awarded it a "crown", indicating an album for which the authors felt particular admiration or affection.[13]
^Prince, David (1998). "Sonny Rollins". In Holtje, Steve; Lee, Nancy Ann (eds.).MusicHound Jazz: The Essential Music Guide. New York and Madrid: Schirmer Trade Books. p. 970.ISBN1578590310.
^abCook, Richard and Brian Morton (2008),The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (ninth ed.)Penguin, p. 1233.
